Circuit boards that carry electronic integrated circuits and discrete electronic components are well known. A circuit board substrate is prepared with predetermined conductor paths and pads for receiving the leads of electronic components such as integrated circuit chips, resistors or capacitors. During the circuit board assembly process, solder paste deposits are placed onto the board substrate at appropriate positions. The solder paste deposits are usually applied by placing a stencil screen onto the substrate, applying solder paste through the stencil openings and removing the stencil from the substrate. The circuit board electronic components are then positioned onto the substrate, preferably with a pick and place machine, with leads of the electronic components placed on the respective solder paste deposits. The circuit board is passed through an oven after all of the components are positioned on the substrate to melt the solder paste deposits thus creating an electrical as well as mechanical connection between the components and the substrate.
The size of the solder paste deposits and electronic components and the accuracy with which they must be placed on the substrate has become increasingly smaller and tighter with the increased emphasis on miniaturization in the electronics industry. Solder paste deposit heights can be as small as 50 microns and the height of the solder paste brick must often be measured to within 1 percent of the designed height and size. The center-to-center spacing between solder bricks is sometimes as little as 200 microns. Too little solder paste can result in no electrical connection between the lead of an electronic component and the pad of the circuit board substrate. Too much paste can result in bridging and short-circuiting between the leads of a component. Discrete electronic components such as resistors and capacitors can be as small as 200×400 microns and leads on micro ball grid array components can have a center-to-center spacing less than 300 microns.
A single circuit board can cost thousands and even tens of thousands of dollars to manufacture. Testing of a circuit board after the fabrication process is complete can detect errors in solder paste placement and component placement and lead connection, but often the only remedy for a faulty board is rejection of the entire board. In addition, with the miniaturization of components, visual inspection of the circuit board, even with optical magnification, is unreliable. It is accordingly imperative that a circuit board be inspected during the fabrication process so that improper solder paste placement can be detected prior to the placement of the electronic components onto the substrate. Such in-process solder inspection reduces the cost of failure since expensive components have not yet been placed onto the circuit board.
After placement, it is also important to inspect the components to ensure proper placement of the components. Improperly placed components, missing components or poor solder joints are typical defects introduced during the placement of the components and reflow of the solder paste. After reflow, proper placement of the components and the quality of the reflowed solder junctions can be inspected using an automated optical inspection system to ensure that all components are properly soldered and connected to the circuit board. Current optical inspection systems use 2D video images of the circuit board to detect defects. However, optical inspection systems that detect 3D height images of the circuit board make possible or otherwise improve the detection of placement defects such as lifted leads, package coplanarity, and component tombstones and billboards.
The use of white light phased profilometry is a well-known technique for optically acquiring topological surface height images of circuit boards. However, current circuit board inspection sensors that employ phased profilometry have some limitations. Typical phase profilometers used to acquire topological surface height image of circuit boards generally use triangulation principles combined with structured light to determine the height of the surface at every pixel defined by the sensor's camera. One limitation of using triangulation sensing to produce a height image of a circuit board is that the incident angle of the pattern projection optical axis and image sensing optic axis are different. If the circuit board has height features that have an edge slope large enough that they occlude either the pattern projection optical axis or image sensing optical axis relative to some area on the surface, the sensor will not be able to measure those areas of the circuit board.
One approach, to mitigate the triangulation shadow effect is to use multiple pattern projection sources with a normally incident camera. Each of the sources projects a structured pattern onto the circuit board from different incident angles. If one pattern projection source is occluded, or otherwise blocked, from an area of the test surface, there is a high probability that one of the other pattern projection source will be able to illuminate that area. To acquire a non-occluded height image, the camera acquires images from each of the pattern projection sources serially and then combines the results of the multiple height images to ensure ail areas of the linage contain valid height data. One disadvantage to this approach is that multiple image acquisition cycles are required to generate a single height image which slows down the overall acquisition process when compared to a sensor that uses a single source. Implementation of multiple, source white light phase triangulation sensors requires the pattern projection sources to be turned on separately so that the image from one source, followed by acquisition of an image from another source, can be acquired in sequence by the camera. This operation will typically require two or more image acquisition cycles of the sensor in order to acquire height image field of view (FOV).
In prior art phase profilometers, the structured light is characteristically generated by imaging a reticle consisting of a fixed chrome-on-glass pattern onto the circuit board. To acquire a height image, a sequence of patterned images are required, each of the images being a shifted version of the previous image. Typically, the structured pattern is a sinusoidal intensity pattern and the sequence of images are the same sinusoidal pattern; each image of the sequence shifted relative to the other images of the sequence some known fraction of the sinusoidal period. Usually, the phase shift in the sequence of images is created by physically moving the reticle within the sensor. One disadvantage to utilizing a chrome-on-glass reticle is that changing the frequency or orientation of the structured light requires replacing the reticle, changing the magnification of the pattern projection optics or both. Additionally, physically moving a glass reticle within the sensor requires expensive mechanical motion components. Also, the intensity or modulation depth of the sinusoidal pattern is fixed and cannot be changed.
Generating height images of circuit boards with a white light structured light sensor using a chrome-on-glass reticle restricts the usefulness of the resulting height images. Circuit boards, especially with mounted components, require a large height measurement range to accommodate tall components. Also, the surface of circuit boards is fabricated with many different materials, each with different optical characteristics and reflectivities. In some cases, the wide range of reflectivities on the surface of a circuit board is larger than can be detected by typical cameras. Reflowed solder, silk screen printing and metal traces are examples of bright objects on a circuit board. Dark solder mask material and component bodies are examples of very dark areas. Using a fixed chrome-on-glass reticle to illuminate the circuit board does not provide any flexibility in changing the measurement range or the amount of light projected on the circuit board.
Providing a multiple viewpoint triangulation sensor for generating height images of a circuit board using phased structured light that does not have the associated cost or speed penalty that is present in the current state of the art for multiple source phase height image sensors would represent a useful advance to high-speed three-dimensional inspection of circuit boards.
Coupled with the multiple viewpoint triangulation sensor, providing a means to change the frequency, orientation and type of the structured light pattern in real time without physically moving the reticle would allow the sensor to change characteristics without modifying the sensor hardware and increase the reliability of the sensor. In addition to changing the frequency and orientation of the structured light pattern, providing a means to modify the intensity of the structured light pattern in select areas of the sensor's field of view would enhance the dynamic range of the sensor. Also, providing a means to prevent light from illuminating selected areas in the field of view would reduce the effects of multiple path reflections which cause errors in height images of circuit boards.